July 21, 1906.] 
IOI 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
CUTTING UP WHALE AT WANGAMUMU. 
ouananiche one morning before 10 o’clock, the 
largest being over 3 pounds in weight. 
Another of my companions, tjie Rev. Canon 
Chambers, of Lachine, near Montreal, who, like 
Canon Kingsley, is both a literary and a sport¬ 
ing parson, killed a ouananiche close upon 4 
pounds in weight, in very heavy water, without 
the aid of either guide or net. His fish was 
fortunately well hooked and gave him a good 
twenty minutes’ sport. 
More Big Pike. 
On one of the walls of a room in the Island 
House I saw the skin of a pike which had 
weighed over 21 pounds, and had been killed by 
Mr. T. L. Marcoux, the superintendent of the 
Roberval Hatchery. 
A few days before my visit to the Discharge, 
two large pike were killed near Isle Ronde, 
opposite the Island House. Dr. Whitehouse, 
of New York, killed one on a No. 6 spoon. • Its 
weight was 14*4 pounds. Mr. Emery, of Lowell, 
caught the other which weighed 14% pounds. 
Salmon Fishermen Doing Well. 
Good sport is reported from all the salmon 
rivers from which I have any information. The 
Gaspe rivers are proving very productive this 
season. Mr. Austin, of Quebec, brought to 
Baker’s Hotel, Gaspe Basin, the other day seven 
salmon which he had caught in part of one day. 
The Matane, the Metis and the Magdalen 
rivers are all yielding good sport. On the latter 
Mr. Ross and party have been having splendid 
fishing. The largest fish so far this season was 
killed there by a lady, Miss Burstall. It weighed 
well over 30 pounds. 
Mr. Louis Cabot, of Boston, and party ar¬ 
rived at his river—the Grand of Gaspe—on 
June 27, and the fish there, too, are reported to 
be very abundant this year. 
Mr. J. J. Hill has returned from the St. John 
on the north shore, after killing a number of 
very fine fish, but when he made up his mind 
to leave the river, the fishing was just about 
at its best. Mr. Hill had other fish to fry, 
however, elsewhere. , 
The members of the Natashquan Club write 
that they were rather early on the ground for 
the fish, but are now having good sport. As in 
the case of the Grand Discharge, the season 
this year is late in most of the rivers of the 
north shore of the Gulf. In the St. Margaret, 
however—the tributary of the Saguenay—the 
fish ran early. The sport is excellent, and now 
at its best. Mr. Henry Russell, of Detroit, has 
gone home after killing nearly twenty fish. Mr. 
Brackett, with whom he fished, and who will 
remain on the river until the end of the season 
is also having better sport than for several 
years past, notwithstanding the curious fact 
that one of his salmon pools at what is known 
as the Forks has been much depreciated by the 
action of the ice during the last winter or 
spring, which has carved out a new one just 
below it, thus throwing it into the limits of the 
Ste. Marguerite Salmon Club. The members 
of this club are having a splendid season. Mr. 
Mitchell, of New York; Mr. Gardner Lyon, of 
Oswego, and the Rev. Dr. Henry Van Dyke 
have been particularly fortunate so far. 
Dr. Van Dyke’s Remarkable Experience. 
Dr. Van Dyke had an exciting experience a 
few days ag:o. He hooked a large salmon just 
after dark in one of the upper pools, and the 
fish ran him a race down the rapids, the doctor 
following, a good second, in his canoe. It was 
well after dark when his shouts were heard at 
the Forks, as his canoe pulled up and he found 
that something had fouled. While the guides 
rushed to free the line, the doctor remarked that 
he had lost a fine fish. No sooner was the 
line freed, however, than he quickly found out 
that he was still fast to his fish, and away went 
both salmon and professor again down the next 
rapids. The fish was ultimately saved and found 
to be 30 pounds in weight, but it was so dark 
when the salmon was finally killed that the 
guides had to prepare torches to be able to see 
to gaff it. Dr. Van Dyke’s experience recalls 
that of the Rev. Dr. Rainsford, who was once 
towed so far and so rapidly down the Resti- 
gouche by a big foully-hooked salmon that he 
bid adieu to his friends of the different camps 
passed by him on the way, declaring that he was 
off for sea. And for some time it looked like 
it, too, though the end of it came at length with 
the end of the fish. 
Another Big Fight. 
The story of another fight with a fish comes 
from Fredericton, N. B. The scene of the 
battle was Hartt’s Island pool in the St. John 
River at Springhill, about six miles from 
Fredericton. Colonel J. J. Tucker, an ex-mem¬ 
ber of the Canadian Parliament, engaged 
Thomas Phillips as guide and started out to 
catch a big fish. The Colonel is an experienced 
angler, who has a number of very large salmon 
to his credit. Armed with his trusty salmon rod, 
he whipped the pool without success, and then, 
toward evening tied on an artificial bait and 
proceeded to do some trolling. It was not long 
before he felt a tug at his line and successfully 
hooked his fish. It proved easier to do this than 
to land it. Then began the struggle for 
supremacy with the Colonel at one end of the 
line and the unknown fish of vast proportions 
at the other. Time and again he tried to get 
the fish to the surface, but without success. It 
towed the boat in all directions, but never once 
broke water, nor yet even approached the sur¬ 
face. The Colonel became exhausted in the 
struggle and was compelled to hand his rod 
over to the guide. After a rest of five minutes 
he resumed the fight, but with no better suc¬ 
cess than before. Two hours later, becoming 
discouraged, he started the fish up stream and 
ordered the guide to row in the opposite direc¬ 
tion. This quickly brought the tug of war to 
an end. The line gave way under the strain 
and the fish made off with the troll in its mouth. 
The guide corroborates the story in every par¬ 
ticular, and expresses the belief that the fish 
hooked was an enormous bar or sea bass, whose 
weight he estimates at 60 pounds, while the 
Colonel places it at 150 pounds. 
About Some Well-Known Guides. 
Not many weeks ago I answered in these 
columns an inquiry about guides at Lake St. 
John and mentioned the name of John Lessard 
as one of the best of those at the Grand Dis¬ 
charge, necessarily unaware at the time of the 
fact, which I only learned upon the occasion of 
my recent visit there, that Lessard died last 
February of some stomach trouble. 
I was rather surprised to find my old guide, 
John Morel, still at his work, and in excellent 
health, and at once engaged him. He is only 
just sixty years of age, but he seemed to be 
suffering from so bad a lung trouble when I last 
saw him several years ago that I never ex¬ 
pected to be able to employ him again. There 
is probably no better known guide in the whole 
Lake St. John district than John Morel, thanks 
not only to the many visiting anglers whom he 
has served, but also to the fact that he has been 
immortalized by Dr. Van Dyke in his charming 
“Little Rivers.” The time has not come yet, 
however, foretold by the doctor, when John 
would have to yield the stern of his canoe to 
his son, though the latter, a younger boy than 
he with whom the doctor descended the rapids, 
now does the carrying of the canoe over the 
portages instead of his father. The elder Morel 
has shaved off the piratical-looking red beard 
described by Dr. Van Dyke—and in any case 
it would be no longer red now—but the same 
clear, kind, blue eyes and honest, friendly face 
still shine out from under his old slouch hat. 
When I was through with the two Morels, I 
gladly turned them over to Baron Haymerle, 
secretary of the Austrian Embassy at Washing¬ 
ton, who was about to run the rapids of the 
Discharge to Chicoutimi, and who had asked me 
to select the guides for the trip. John and an¬ 
other son had accompanied me on this same 
trip twelve years ago. 
What is known as the Lake St. John country 
is of such vast extent, that it is rare to find any 
guides who know every part of it equally well, 
and this fact was brought home to me the other 
day when I saw how little was known of the 
best fishing places in the Grand Discharge by 
guides who could not be beaten for such trips 
as those to Lake Tschotagama or Lac-a-Jim. 
Mr. W. H. St. John, of Hartford, Conn., who 
has just had splendid sport at the Grand Dis¬ 
charge, has left for Lac-a-Jim, with his cousin, 
